House of Eratosthenes

I’ve been trying to grasp for a truth that is so obvious that all of us know it. But it’s not a polite truth, so we don’t talk about it. Yet I think it’s important to say it out loud, because it is a truth that haunts our national discourse.

As a nation we are under the thumb of idiots. Not just indoctrinated, or wrong-thinking, or power-hungry, or manipulative, or even malevolent people. No, I mean real lowbrows, people who constantly fall for really stupid ideas.
:
The Federal EPA is about to officially declare carbon dioxide to be a pollutant. That’s not just false and unscientific; it’s not just an excuse for taxing everything in sight, including breathing. It’s not merely wrong. It’s idiotic.
:
Or look at Obama’s unbelievable spending spree. No sane and sensible taxpayer could possibly believe that spending trillions and trillions of dollars on blue-sky fantasies makes any sense at all; the only reason Americans aren’t in open rebellion yet is that half of them can’t believe it’s happening, and the other half are idiots.
:
Obama’s 22 White House czars. That’s really stupid. As well as a violation of the Constitution. But it’s a Chinese laugh line. It’s so obviously wrong and power-mad that it’s not worth debating.

Legalizing drugs. That’s really stupid.

Obama’s power-grab over the medical sector of the economy? It’s profoundly stupid. We can insure all the uninsured people in the country for a tiny fraction of all that money.
:
The rise to power and fame of the real lowbrows explains a lot. It even points to an answer of sorts. Because we’ve all been intimidated by the Cult of Nice not to contradict anybody who comes out with a really stupid, destructive idea. We can no longer call a really stupid idea what it is. I know that I censor myself all the time. We have been taught to keep our mouths shut when a word in time might make a real difference. We have allowed the national conversation to be dumbed down. [Italicized emphasis Lewis’; bold emphasis mine]

As excellent as the writing is, and the thinking behind it, and the fact-gathering that supports the thinking, Lewis has missed something. There’s a certain McCarthy logic going on here. I’m not saying by “McCarthy logic” that we should be interrogating people in front of the Senate and demanding to know are they now, or have they ever been, a member of something. I’m referring to McCarthy’s scathing insult against General George C. Marshall — something about if the General was merely stupid, the laws of probability dictate that his ideas would work out half the time.

Pass on the question of whether that applied to Gen. Marshall or if it was legitimate to accuse him of treason. McCarthy logic applies here: If the problem was that we were nationally stupid, or under the nation-wide thumb of a ruling class of idiots, the laws of probability dictate that we would become enamored of sensible ideas half the time. The stopped clock must be right twice a day.

It isn’t happening.

What is happening is that we are profoundly bored — and therefore there is a certain allure to the words of anyone who proposes for our review, that maybe two plus two equals five. This is why I apply the McCarthy logic. If we were simply stupid, we’d land on four every now and then by random chance.

The problem taking place here, is that the name of the game isn’t to be right; nothing depends on that anymore. All our trappings in life, our fancy iced coffee drinks, our stale reality teevee shows, our football games, we get ’em whether we’re right about everything or wrong about everything. In generations past, being wrong could getcha killed. But not here and not now, so we don’t care. No, the point to an idea, now, is to get attention from others. End result? An idea that gets you attention, and is wrong, is worth something — an idea that is right, but gets you no attention, is a waste of breath.

Presto. Two and two are five. And two-and-two cannot be four. THAT, there, ladies and gentlemen, is the problem. That’s why we are wrong so often; we are trying to be.

Hat tip to Rick.

There are few willing to withstand the scrutiny of standing up and asking for the onslaught. It is not enough to be right on which you are speaking, but you now must be right in every other facet of your existence (e.g. – William Bennett).

The voting public may believe that voting for change will always be correct, and if not, they’ll simply vote for a different change the next time. This coincides with your stopped-clock-right-twice-a-day metaphor. To insulate your psyche, you change your vote when it turns out you were wrong (and we are always told that we were wrong 2 to 4 years afterwards, without fail). Like fashion, correct ideas will eventually find favor for a time – in marketing terms it’ll return like coke classic over new coke (I hope). Trouble is, history is not taught for the future, but to romanticize the past. Schools teach history, but not all educators are teachers. Some (grandparents, bosses, etc.) talk about the past to prevent future ills – they trust you with their experiences; the fruit, if you’re lucky, is wisdom.

America truly believes in forgiveness and starting over – so much so that the decisions we collectively make don’t register as fatal in our minds, because we’ve usually overcome them. While we’ve had a pretty good track record with regard to the ability to overcome, few are keeping score properly.

I choose Ann Coulter and single motherhood as an example. She has decided to keep score on how well the conventional wisdom has fared, and is providing evidence that the choice to reward defying traditional family values has hurt more than help. When you add up the score as she’s done, you find that we were sold a bad bill of goods. And, I’d guess, she’s attempting to assist others in looking for the hidden detriments in existing progressive thought, before convention sets in. I have some trouble with her delivery, but I can overlook it. Those that attack her (and avoid her points) always seem to be unintentionally revealing that they know her logic destroys what many have built their careers, attitudes, and social culture around, and the pain must go away somehow. It’s a reflex – that’s why it’s so quick.
- wch | 06/29/2009 @ 12:20

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Recent

Items of Interest

Monthly Archives

What They Say

Links

“We Are Under the Thumb of Idiots”Saturday, June 27th, 2009

“We Are Under the Thumb of Idiots”
Saturday, June 27th, 2009